Crimea to vote Putin for the first time amid crackdown on dissent

SIMFEROPOL: In Crimea, which votes this weekend in Russian presidential elections for the first time since annexation from Ukraine in 2014, loudspeakers blast out the message: “Choose a president! Choose a future!”. Local authorities say the polls are a chance to thank President Vladimir Putin for taking control of the peninsula, but activists have complained of a crackdown ahead of what Kiev maintains is an illegal vote.

Crimea has suffered under Western sanctions following a hastily organized referendum to rejoin Russia four years ago, but the Kremlin is making efforts to ease the area’s isolation. “We see the election as a second referendum and as an opportunity to thank Putin for what he did in 2014,” said Alexander Formanchuk, an adviser to Sergei Aksyonov, the Moscow-installed Crimean leader.

With Putin sure to return to the Kremlin with a landslide today, authorities across Russia have led a campaign to convince people to turn out to vote. On the Black Sea peninsula, this campaign is even more intense, with election posters covering public transport as well as the loudspeakers blaring in public areas. Formanchuk - who calls the result “absolutely predictable” - told AFP he is convinced most Crimeans will take part, saying the peninsula has a history of high voter turnouts. He cited the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election when Crimea overwhelmingly supported pro-Kremlin Viktor Yanukovich, currently living in exile in Russia, as an example.

Putin’s flying visit Vladislav Ganzhara, who was seven years old and a Ukrainian citizen when Vladimir Putin first came to power in Russia, is now a Kremlin-loyal MP in the Crimean parliament. He brushed off threats from Kiev that organizers of the vote in the peninsula could face criminal charges in Ukraine, and said it did not matter if the outcome of the election was already known. “If you support a team, you go to a game even if you know it will win because it is the strongest,” he told AFP. This week Putin paid a flying visit to Crimea, where several thousand supporters queued for up to five hours to see him speak. The president was late and spoke for less than two minutes before taking a helicopter out of the port city of Sevastopol.

“Even if he was a bit late, it’s because of his busy schedule. People would have waited for him long into the night,” Ganzhara said. The Russian leader earlier visited the construction site of the Kerch bridge, Moscow’s major construction project to unite the peninsula with Russian mainland. He also opened a new “international” airport, despite no flights from outside Russia flying to the disputed peninsula, as part of a wider move to counter the area’s isolation.

The price to pay

Much of the peninsula’s food supplies arrive by ferry from Russia, often resulting in shortages in shops. Since Crimea is cut off from the global banking system, locals make the two-hour voyage by ferry and car to Russia’s southern city of Krasnodar to withdraw cash with international cards. Anastasia Arslanova, a 35year-old lawyer from Sevastopol, said life has become more expensive but that it is a price she is willing to pay to be part of Russia. “We are Russian and we feel good in Russia,” she said.

Moscow’s supporters often blame Crimean bureaucrats for economic hardships rather than the Kremlin and Putin himself. Those Crimeans who do criticize Russian rule say they have faced increased pressure from local security services, who have been given a carte blanche on the peninsula. —AFP